


let me start over (we'll build it back up again)

by itsagamefortwo



Series: five times something goes wrong and one time it goes right (jatp) [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: (i swear this one really isn't all that sad yknow), 5+1 Things, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mild Language, also. carrie is not a bad person, but i also think he's a good dad, do i think he's a bit of a dick for what he did? yes. yes i do, her mum though. i think her mum is the worst, look do i think bobby killed his bandmates? no no i dont, she's a teenage girl. she's just a bit of a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsagamefortwo/pseuds/itsagamefortwo
Summary: Carrie has never been very good at making the right choices in life, until sometimes she is.aka 5 times carrie makes the wrong choice +1 time she makes the right one'Carrie didn’t think she was a bad person. She just sometimes did a bad thing. But she did it for a good reason. At least she thought it was a good reason, it was the only plan she could come up with at least. It wasn’t like she had hurt anyone. Other than her dad's annoying PR managers head. But Carrie had never liked her anyway, they were always too smiley - in that fake, overly friendly way, not like Julie or Julie’s mom who smiled a lot and never in that way that didn’t reach their eyes.'
Relationships: Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Carrie Wilson, Flynn & Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina & Carrie Wilson
Series: five times something goes wrong and one time it goes right (jatp) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986928
Comments: 19
Kudos: 139





	let me start over (we'll build it back up again)

**_one._ **

When Carrie and Julie and Flynn are eight years old they watched _The Lizzie Mcguire movie_ together on the big tv in Carrie’s living room.

They jumped around on the sofa, each taking a corner and hoarding their favourite snacks, making deals when someone wanted a twizzler in exchange for a handful of m&m’s. 

They sing along to the songs, making up the words when they don’t know them and strutting around during the fashion show. 

They gasp out loud when Paolo is revealed to be a liar and cheer when Isabella sings. 

Her mom comes down halfway through the movie, in a too tight dress and heels that make no sense for wearing inside, pauses behind the sofa to watch for a few moments before moving on, into the kitchen and then back upstairs. She doesn’t offer to get them snacks or drinks, to ask who their favourite characters are or if they like the songs. 

Carrie doesn’t dwell on any of that though, because she’s with her two best friends and it’s a Friday night so they have a _whole_ weekend together and her dad had promised to take them with him to the studio tomorrow and Carrie couldn’t be happier. 

That is until they get to the end of the film and she turns to look at her friends, face as serious as an eight year old can be when she realises what could make the whole weekend even **_better_ **.

“I want bangs like Lizzie!” She declares, standing up on the sofa and jumping once before falling down to her knees, the cushions not giving enough of a bounce. The two of them share a look, identical wide smiles growing on their faces, they’re eight years old and cutting your own hair is the best idea you can have after all. 

“I’ll get the scissors!” Flynn is up and off the sofa, socked feet padding across the floor as she rushes to the kitchen. They’re not allowed to touch the knives or the pans, but the cutlery drawer is open to all. 

Carrie sits herself on the living room table, legs just skimming the soft rug underneath it as Julie tilts her head in thought at her, brushing dirty blonde hair in front of her face and then away. Carrie can’t help but giggle as it tickles her nose and Julie sticks her tongue out in concentration but she’s smiling too. 

“I think we just...y’know cut it across here, right?” Julie’s holding a section of her hair between her fingers and makes a snipping motion near her forehead. Carrie has never cut hair before, she’s never even really paid much attention when other people have been cutting hair, but that sounds right to her. 

She shrugs, squinting at her two friends through the blonde strands. 

“Sounds right to me.” 

Flynn nods, holding the scissors out to Julie who shakes her head and then Flynn is scooting next to her on the sofa so they’re both leaning in close. 

“You sure about this?” She asks, scissor blades opening around her hair and hesitating, just in case. 

“Do it!” And Carrie squeezes her eyes shut in excitement. Already anticipating just how _cool_ her new bangs are going to look. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing!?” A loud voice has Carrie’s eyes snapping open and staring wide up at her mom who is half way down the stairs and glaring at the three of them. Flynn has dropped the scissors on the rug and Julie’s hands are shaking as she drops her hair. They’d only managed to cut half of it and Carrie notices that it’s much too short. 

“I-” she starts, but her mom cuts her off by storming down the rest of the stairs, heels clicking with every step and standing in front of the three of them, arms crossed and _glaring_. “I just wanted bangs,” she finishes quietly, eyes down cast and biting her lip. 

She hears her mom scoff above her, suddenly seeming so much taller then the three of them sitting down, so Carrie stands up too, pushing herself off the table and trying to make herself feel bigger. Her mom just glares harder, head shaking. 

“You’ve ruined your hair. Do you have any idea how long it will take to fix? Ugh, Carrie.” She sounds like she wants to say something else, like she’s restraining herself from certain words. But she just shakes her head again, sparing a glare for both Flynn and Julie before turning around and shouting up the stairs. “Trevor! Get down here!”

They wait in silence, Julie and Flynn fidgeting on the sofa while Carrie discreetly tries to wipe away tears she hadn’t realised were falling. Her dad comes down the stairs, black jeans and some fancy loose shirt that hangs open and pause when he reaches the bottom. Takes in her mom glaring and Flynn and Julie sitting quietly and her badly cut hair. Her dad smiles wide and lets out a loud laugh that startles them all. 

Her mom turns her glare on him and Carrie feels herself letting out a breath, not sure what she had been scared about but knowing she _had_ been scared. While she's **not** thinking about that, her mom and dad have started arguing. They do that a lot. Carrie sits down between Flynn and Julie on the sofa when they make room for her, Flynn resting her head on her shoulder while Julie takes her hand, interlocking their fingers. 

“Sorry I cut it too short,” Flynn whispers as the shouting gets louder, none of them paying any attention to what's being said. 

“Not your fault,” she replies with a shrug, raising Flynn’s head as she does so and making the girl laugh. 

“Oh whatever! You deal with **her** then!” Her mom shouts, and Carrie flinches, just a little at the way she says ‘her’. She doesn’t mean to make her mom mad, but it’s like all she seems to do these days. From the corner of her eye she can see Julie frowning, looking over their shoulders and deep furrow appearing on her brow. The way she looks whenever she’s thinking about telling someone off. 

They don’t get to see what Julie might do, because there’s feet stomping up the stairs and then her dad is sitting on the living room table in front of them and he’s smiling again. Even if it’s not as big as before, Carrie still smiles back. 

“Don’t think hairdressing is in your future Flynn,” he says and Flynn laughs and it’s like the strange tension that had formed around them is broken. 

“Sorry I cut my hair dad,” she says quietly, because she feels like she needs to. But her dad just shrugs, leans forward and brushes the still too long strands out of her face and shakes his head at the much too shorter ones, but he’s smiling. 

“It’s just hair kiddo, it’ll grow back. And I’m sure between the four of us we can make this more rockin’, huh? Used to help a friend cut his hair way back when, y'know,” he gets a slightly far away look on his face when he says that but it’s gone in a blink and Carrie thinks maybe she just imagined it. 

He helps them cut the rest of her bangs, feathering out the edges and making it look not so bad anymore, then he sits with them, sharing their snacks and singing along while they watch _The Cheetah Girls_. 

And he must drape blankets over them after they fall asleep, Carrie thinks, because when she wakes up in the morning they’re curled together in one corner of the sofa, warm and safe.

**_two._ **

Carrie didn’t think she was a bad person. She just sometimes did a bad thing. But she did it for a _good_ reason. At least she thought it was a good reason, it was the only plan she could come up with at least. It wasn’t like she had _hurt_ anyone. Other than her dad's annoying PR managers head. But Carrie had never liked her anyway, they were always too smiley - in that fake, overly friendly way, not like Julie or Julie’s mom who smiled a lot and never in that way that didn’t reach their eyes. 

Carrie didn’t like fake people. People who made promises that they didn’t keep. People who made plans only to forget about them. 

Her mom had been full of both. Empty promises and forgotten plans. Always saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Always smiling at her with that half smile that never reached her eyes or seemed like it was _really_ meant for her. 

She didn’t know if it was her fault or her dads, because she did it to both of them. Made her fake promises and half smiles. 

And then she left. 

She left before Carrie even got home from school. Mrs Molina had dropped her off at the front door like she did every Wednesday afternoon and Carrie had been excited all day, she remembers, talking none stop on the car ride over, because her mom had promised to take her to the beach. 

But the house is empty when they get inside, Carrie calling out and getting no answer and Julie’s mom is looking at a _post-it note_ (she'll remember that very clearly later on, when she's older, that her mom had left a **_post-it note_** with a single sentence. Not even a letter) on the kitchen counter, her face going pale in a way Carrie has never seen before. Julie is standing next to her, one small hand holding her small hand as they look around confused.

When Carrie thinks back to that day now, to being ten years old and struggling to understand why her mom isn’t coming home, all she can remember is that it wasn’t her dad that hugged her and dried her tears. Her dad had barely said five words to her before shutting himself in his bedroom with music barely blocking out the sounds of shattering glass. Mrs Molina had helped her pack some clothes and taken her home with her and Julie.

It was three weeks later when her dad showed up at the Molina’s house and took her home. 

And Carrie knows he hasn’t left her, has always come back to get her. But Carrie also knows that when she needed her dad the most he wasn’t there. Didn’t seem to have anytime for her at all because he was too busy with himself. 

So she starts stealing things. Lip sticks and candy bars and cheap plastic bracelets. The only way she knows how to get his attention is to do something wrong. To do something that is classed as bad. 

She sits in the uncomfortable hard plastic chair, eyes on the doorway behind the security guard and waits. They’d called her dad as soon as she’d coughed up a name and number and now they were waiting to see who would show up. The guard might have been hoping for her dad, maybe he wanted to get an autograph, but Carrie knew it would be an assistant of an assistant or if she was really lucky maybe even Mrs or Mr Molina. But only if her dad was talking to them again. He was pretty good at losing people she noticed. 

There’s a knock at the door and in steps as assistant she’s never met before, but he’s got a blackberry in one hand and bluetooth headset on, talking rapidly to someone on the other end. 

“Hi, I’m here to get Carrie Wilson. I’m Dave, one of Mr Wilson's assistants and I’m hoping we can get this all sorted out with minimal fuss.” He’s got one of those wide fake smiles that all her dads PR people have and Carrie rolls her eyes, slumps down in her chair and stops listening to the conversation. 

Maybe she just had to steal something bigger, more expensive. Something that her dad couldn’t ignore her over.

**_three._ **

For most of her life, Carrie has been Julie Molina’s best friend. It’s one of the few constants that she can rely on when everything else seems to be constantly changing around her. 

Until suddenly it’s not. 

And it’s her own fault. 

Carrie knows this, knows she’s brought it on herself, knows that the only one to blame is herself. But she does it anyway. Can’t seem to stop herself from saying the words she knows will hurt the most. 

It’s almost like she’s watching the scene unfold from above, can see herself talking and smirking, can see the moment Julie and Flynn realise she’s being serious. Carrie can pinpoint the exact moment she destroys her friendship with both Julie and Flynn. 

And it’s funny, because on Saturday morning all she had wanted to do was talk to the two of them, to share her excitement with them about everything she was learning while watching her dad record. All the ideas she had for _Dirty Candi_ and how one day they’d be able to do the ultimate collab with _Double Trouble_ . 

She’s rewatching an old video of the three of them performing some half-finished song and dance routine between classes, Julie and Flynn trying to help her figure out how to make it flow better for her group. She’s thinking maybe they need to be spaced out a little more, maybe add in a spin or individual moves, with a pen-lid between her teeth Carrie turns to a fresh page in her note book and makes some small notes.

“Is that your group?” Someone asks over her shoulder and Carrie turns to see the producer her dad has hired for his newest album watching her video. 

“Oh, no, no! These are just my friends, they were helping me work out the dance routine,” she smiles at him, because she’s proud and he seems impressed and while everyone always whispers how Carrie can get a record deal because of her last name alone, she wants to get one because she _deserves_ it, has _earned_ it herself.

“That one singing is really good, it’s not you is it?” He asks and Carrie feels her smile freeze in place just for a second before she relaxes and shakes her head. 

“No that’s my friend Julie. This is me singing now,” she adds, tilting her phone a little in his direction as she sees herself dancing in the middle and singing aloud. 

“Huh,” is all he says with a pleasant smile on his face. But Carrie has been around people like him all her life and she _knows_ when someone is giving a fake smile and she **hates** it. “Well, you let me know if your friend there ever wants to record something, alright?” And then he’s walking away, back to fiddle with dials and bars and talking to her dad. Not even realising the storm he’s unleashed in her mind.

Carrie ignores her phone for the rest of the weekend, doesn’t reply to any texts or acknowledge anything she’s tagged in. She moves silently through the house, her mind whirling with jealousy and anger and annoyance. Julie is her _best friend,_ she knows she’s talented, has always supported her. There’s nothing new about this information. 

But there’s something about the producer, watching the three of them perform and him singling out _Julie_ over her, even while she’s sitting right there. It buries itself in her mind, digging in roots and taking hold and Carrie can’t shake it. 

The growing jealousy she’s never experienced directed at her friends before. 

So wrapped up in her own thoughts and emotions, she doesn’t even realise the moment she comes to a decision. 

It is, arguably, the worst decision she could ever make.

(And in a few years time when she's older and wiser, Carrie knows she’ll look back on it and know this was the moment when she let herself become something she hated, fake and insecure. And she'll hate herself more than she does at the very moment it happens.)

All she knows is that Monday morning at school as Julie is smiling at her and Flynn is waving, both trying to ask about her weekend, Carrie plasters on a fake smile (and she _hates_ herself for it, _hates_ the way it feels on her face, _hates_ the way it changes her eyes), she tosses her hair over her shoulder and says the words that burn a fifteen year friendship to the ground. 

It’s later that week, when Carrie is at home doing homework and her dad strolls into the kitchen and asks her where Julie and Flynn are that she finally, fully realises just what she’s done. 

“We’re not friends anymore dad,” she says, tucking dark blonde hair behind her ear and trying to focus on her maths work. She can see him pause at the fridge, turning curious and worried eyes on her, his mouth opening to say something when she cuts him off with a shake of her head. “We’re not friends, it doesn’t matter. Just drop it, okay?”

And, thankfully, he does. Carrie doesn’t think she’d know how to explain herself if he hadn’t.

**_four._ **

She finds an old demo cd and a tattered notebook tucked between a book on _The Rolling Stones_ and an unopened copy of some Gordon Ramsey cookbook. The name _Sunset Curve_ on a black background stands out to her and she flips it over to look at the short track list. She doesn’t recognise any of the titles but she knows it must have some importance if her dad has kept it. 

Walking over to the stereo she opens the case up, pops out the cd and has it halfway into the machine when she drops it, eyes caught on the pull out and the half of a face she can see. 

She knows that face. Has seen it on stage more in the last few months then she would like. But he was supposed to be a hologram of some guy from Sweden. Frowning, she slips the pull out free, there’s a printed out sheet of paper folded in quarters too she notices but ignores it for now, instead slowly opening up the pull out poster. Four faces look back at her, and she recognises three of them from Julie’s band. 

The bassist who keeps winking at Kayla, the drummer who seems to pour everything he has into the song, the guitarist who looks at Julie like she’s hung the damn moon. 

And her – it’s her _dad_.

Younger, clean shaven, hair a little shorter and without sunglasses. But it’s _him,_ she’d know his eyes anywhere, they look back at her in the mirror each morning. Carrie can feel her frown deepen, bites her lip as she tries to work out why her dad is in a band photo with Julie’s hologram band. 

The second sheet of paper crinkles in her fingers and she forces her eyes away from the pull out and unfolds that instead. There’s another photo of the band, and she idly thinks it must be from the same photoshoot because they’re wearing almost the exact same outfits. 

It’s an article, she realises as her eyes glance down at the words and then back to the photo only to dart straight back to the headline. In bold block print is the words that have her hands shaking and eyes clouding over in confusion. 

**_A Hollywood Tragedy. 1995_ **. 

She looks from the article to the boys faces, wracking her mind to try and remember _exactly_ what Julie’s band looked like. But she doesn’t think there’s any possible way she’d forget any of their faces. Not that it answered any of the questions now crowding in her head.

Because the only explanation she was coming to was fucking _ghosts_ and that didn’t seem like an explanation at all. 

Though it would explain why her dad had been acting so strange ever since The Orpheum. Why he’d been cagey and cautious and asking so many questions about Julie lately. If her band had died in 1995 and were suddenly out performing with her kids ex friend, she’d be acting a little weird too.

Carrie can’t stop the laugh that bubbles past her lips, it sounds strangled and half deranged to her own ears and she’s not sure what to do. How to process this information in her hands. She remembers the notebook she’s holding then, a heavy weight in her hand and she can see doodles and words scribbled over the cover. She can’t decipher some of them, but over and over in different styles is that band name. _Sunset Curve._

Hands still shaking Carrie sets the cd, pull out and printed article on top of the stereo and takes in a deep breath, counts to five in her head and blows it out. Her mind is still racing but she feels a little steadier in herself. She flips through the notebook quickly seeing nothing but words upon words littering the pages in handwriting that is nothing like her dads.

Opening the book to a random page she reads. There lyrics, she realises with a jolt. Lyrics she recognises. Lyrics she has sung along to whenever her dad’s song came on the radio.

Lyrics he hadn’t written?

She turns to another page and then another, flipping through half the book and recognising nearly every song she finds. She pauses, not realising how fast and hard she’d begun to breath until she’s trying to suck in air as her heart races. Because these are her dad’s songs but his writing isn’t anywhere in this book.

Turning it to the first page she gets an answer as to why. 

There, in block print, underlined and circled, the clearest the writing had been throughout it all, as if the owner had been warning people to stay away from it, was the words: **PROPERTY OF LUKE PATTERSON**. 

And Carrie can’t even think to stop the laugh that leaves her mouth, or the small choked sob that follows. She had always wondered why her dad had written and recorded a song called _My Name is Luke_. 

Now she had her answer.

It wasn't his fucking song.

She’s sitting on the ground, back against a bookcase and legs spread out in front of her, making her way through the notebook slower now, taking in each song, when her dad finds her. He’s got his mouth open, like he was going to ask her something when he freezes in the doorway. Noticing the notebook, the cd, the poster. Carrie can’t remember seeing her dad ever looking so worried or horrified. 

“You stole his songs,” is all she says as she looks up at him. There’s no need to mention a name, they both know who she’s talking about. 

“Carrie–” he starts, but either he doesn’t know what he’s going to say or just can’t form the words, whatever it is Carrie watches as he stumbled, mouth opening and closing as nothing comes out. 

“You never said you were in a band,” because that’s another new thing Carrie has learnt today. Her dad used to be part of a band and then that band had died and he had stolen their songs.

“It was–” he pauses again, sucks in a breath and lets one out. “It was a long time ago. And they– they _died,_ Carrie. I went to three funerals. They were dead, but their songs were– _His_ songs were there and they deserved to be heard.” He doesn’t mention their names, Carrie notes as she nods her head at him, her eyes going back to the notebook of stolen songs in front of her. 

“You can’t say anything about this to anyone. Any of it. We don’t know what’s going on, how Julie knows about them. If they’re–” He doesn’t say the word, but it hangs there in the silence between them. _Ghosts._ But he keeps talking, not letting her say anything. “None of that matters. You can’t mention anything to anyone. About _Sunset Curve_ , or about the songs.” 

Carrie snaps her head up to him, opens her mouth to say something. To say how it’s _wrong_ and how he _stole_ them and how his first two albums weren’t even really _his_. But her dad is talking again, and he’s crouched down in front of her now, hands resting on her knees and staring at her with wide eyes. 

“This could _ruin_ me Carrie. You can’t say anything, okay? Please."

She looks at him, bites her lip as she looks back at the notebook and then back at her dad. Nods her head once. It’s been twenty five years, even if they were ghosts did it even really matter anymore? (She did her best to ignore the little voice in her head that told her it did.)

**_five._ **

When Nick broke up with her, Carrie had cried into her pillow for an hour. She’d watched five different rom-coms and eaten half a tub of ice cream. She’d written a song that _Dirty Candi_ would never perform but helped her get her emotions out all the same. 

Carrie thinks she’s experienced heartbreak before. When she fully realised that her mom wasn’t coming back, when she figured out that no matter how many times she was nearly arrested her dad wouldn’t be coming to the mall to pick her up, when she set fire to a lifelong friendship and watched tears she had caused fall. 

All of those were heartbreak, she thinks. They’d all hurt her in ways she was still trying to understand. Old wounds that had scabbed over badly and were starting to get infected. 

But this heartbreak is different. It hurts, but when she examines the metaphorical wound on her heart it doesn’t hurt to poke at it. Not like it still hurts to think about her mom or Julie. When her dad had found out, he’d told her a first break up was always the worst, but that you could get some killer songs out of it. 

(Now, knowing all that she knows, she wonders how many of his heart broken songs were actually written by him and how many were written by his dead band mates.) 

The small cut on her heart gets a plaster and she picks up her emotions and stuffs them back into place and she puts her fake smile on her face and by Wednesday when she next sees Nick it’s like there hadn’t been any hearts breaking at all. 

She does so well in fact, at ignoring Nick, at pretending the last few years with him hadn’t happened, that she almost doesn’t notice the changes. 

They’re subtle really. The way he walks down the hallways. The way he holds himself just a little straighter, but leans just a little on an angle. The way he says onomatopoeia in english class without stuttering once even though Carrie _knows_ he’s never been able to say it fully. 

It’s all these little things that people who don’t know him wouldn’t notice. But she does. There’s something wrong with Nick and Carrie, well she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do about it. _If_ she’s even supposed to do something about it. 

He broke up with her after all. 

So she watches as Nick watches Julie, as he talks to Flynn, as he goes about his day just being a little _off_. And she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t do anything. She doubts anyone would listen to her even if she did say something. 

It’s none of her business, that’s what she keeps telling herself. Nick broke up with her, and her heart broke just a little and now she has no responsibility for whatever is going on. It’s what she tells herself. She hopes she’ll start believing it soon.

**_+one._ **

There comes a moment, Carrie thinks, when you have to choose who you want to be in life. 

If you want to be a liar and fake and jealous, and ignore your mistakes.

Or if you want to put aside the jealousy, smile freely and care deeply, and own up to the wrongs you’ve caused. 

Right and wrong. 

Wrong and right. 

Carrie’s pretty sure if someone was to tally up her life choices there would be more marks in the wrong column then the right one. 

But she’s seventeen and she’s pretty sure there’s still plenty of time to change it. 

She hasn’t stood in front of the Molina’s front door in a long time, she can barely even remember a time when she’d rung the doorbell (that’s not true, she remembers the last time she’d pressed the bell and it’s a memory she chooses not to focus on, there had been too much black, too many tears, and she hadn’t found the strength to even offer Julie a hug, but she’d tried to make Carlos smile and hoped that would be enough.), and she certainly doesn’t remember ever feeling so anxious as she stands outside. 

She shuffles her feet, pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and counts to ten in her head. She’s holding a plain brown gift bag in one hand, the rope handle rough along her palm and it’s grounding. She rubs her thumb along and it once and rings the doorbell. 

There’s a few seconds of silence followed by the sound of steps on the other side, someone shouting something that gets lost in the distance and then the door is opening and Ray Molina is looking at her. He blinks, an eyebrow quirking up and then he’s smiling at her, like he’s always smiled, warm and friendly and open and real. 

“Carrie! What a surprise. Looking for Julie?” There’s mild curiosity in his tone, but none of the animosity she’s always thought should be there. She’d made his daughter cry after all, shouldn’t he hate her on principle alone?

“If she’s around,” Carrie replies with her own smile, smaller and dimmer but she hopes it’s just as real. She’s still trying to work it out. 

“In the garage. Knock before you go in,” he nods around to the back of the house, gives her an encouraging smile and watches as she walks away. She hears the door shut only when she’s out of sight. And then she’s stood in front of another door. There’s sounds of laughing inside, the clash of cymbals like someones knocked into them, muffled voices all talking over each other. It all sounds very happy. She hopes she isn't about to ruin it.

She tightens her grip on the gift bags in her hand. When she had thought of what to do, when she had planned out every step and action and word, it hadn’t seemed so daunting. But now that she’s actually here, Carrie has never been so afraid. 

But she needs to thank them, she needs to apologise to them. 

All of them. 

Julie and her band of ghosts. 

She frowns at the thought, it only just occurring to her that she’s going to have to explain that she _knows_ they’re ghosts. Though she supposes maybe the contents of the gift bag will do that. She hopes it does, she squeezes her eyes shut and rubs a hand across them. 

Maybe this was a bad idea. 

She could still turn around, walk away, act like she had never been here, pretend that she’d never decided she wanted to right some wrongs. 

She's half a step away from turning fully around when a voice whispers a stern ‘ _no_ ’ in her mind. She’s not sure whose voice it is, though it is familiar and almost comforting. Blowing out a breath, straightening her spine and pushing stray locks of hair behind her shoulders, Carrie knocks on the studio door. 

There’s whispers from the other side, someone shushing someone else and then Julie is poking her head around the door and her eyes are widening as they land on Carrie. 

“Carrie. What uh– what are you doing here?” She asks, confusion clear by the furrow between her brows and the weary look in her eyes. Carrie swallows and does her best to smile, small and unforced. She’s not sure it works if the growing weary look in Julie’s eyes is anything to go by.

“I um…” Carrie closes her eyes for a second before opening them and nodding once. “I needed to talk to you. You and your band. And before you say anything about them being holograms, I know they’re in there. I heard them, actually I can still hear them they’re terrible at whispering.” 

Because she can clearly hear someone saying her name and another mentioning something about dancing and a very clear _‘maybe it’s about the haunting?_ ’ ‘ _shut up Reg!_ ’. Julie glares, this time over her shoulder at where Carrie guesses the guys are meant to be keeping quiet. But she opens the door a little wider and gestures for Carrie to come in. She waits to let out her relieved sigh until Julie isn’t looking her way. 

The studio garage looks the same as it always has, warm and inviting and inspiring. She suddenly remembers why they’d always spent so much time out here as kids. But there’s changes too, a drum kit set up, guitars and a bass in stands, clothes littered on chairs and draped over the banister of the loft. 

And of course the three ghosts. They’re a pretty big change. 

They’re stood looking at her.

Her dad’s dead ex-best friends.

His ex-dead-ex-best friends.

In the months since she first found the demo cd Carrie has done her best to learn a little about them all, out of curiosity more than anything. But it certainly helps now, to know who each of them are without an introduction. 

Alex, with his pink hoodie and hat on backwards has his head tilted, eyeing her curiously even as he taps a drumstick against his leg, but there’s also a slight smile on his lips and he even waves awkwardly with his free hand, Carrie thinks that’s a pretty good sign. Reggie has his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet and eyes wandering from her to Alex to Julie to Luke and back again, almost as if he’s unsure and Carrie can’t blame him, she’s pretty unsure too. Luke is glaring at her, sort of at least, his eyebrows are drawn together and his lips are scrunched to the side and his arms are crossed across his chest, and you don’t have to be a body language expert to know what that means.

“Look, I don’t want to interrupt and you can. You can tell me to get out if you want. I just–” She pauses, takes a breath and tries to slow down. “I just wanted to thank you.” There’s four identical looks of confusion on their faces and Carrie really tries not to roll her eyes but she fails. “For saving Nick. Or finding the real Nick again? I’m not sure what you did. But I know it’s because of you guys that he’s _Nick_ again and that he’s okay. And I just– I wanted to thank you for that.” 

Whatever they had been expecting her to say, Carrie knows it wasn’t that. Luke goes from glaring to gaping at her, Reggie stops rocking and almost falls in the process, Alex has stilled his hands and Julie has taken a half a step towards her, eyebrows raised. 

“How do you– I– We–” Julie starts, fumbles, throws her hands in the air and looks at the boys for help. 

“How’d you know we had anything to do with it? Not that we know anything about it,” Alex winces, almost as if he hadn’t meant to say that last bit and this time Carrie means to roll her eyes at them. 

“Yeah okay, lets not do the pretending thing. I don’t know all the details, I just know you guys helped him. And that you’re ghosts.” It was Carrie’s turn to wince now. She hadn’t quite meant to blurt that last bit out like that. And now they were _really_ staring at her. And all shouting at the same time while Julie was pacing and Carrie stepped forward and pushed the brown gift bag into Lukes hands. 

They all shut up as he held it at arms length and looked at her. 

“Just– just open it.” Is all she can say, biting her lip and looking anywhere but at them. 

She hears the sound of sellotape being unpeeled and the crinkle of paper and then a soft gasp. 

“Is that–” Reggie starts and Carrie forces herself to look at them again. Alex and Reggie and Julie are looking at the notebook that Luke is holding carefully in his hands, but Luke himself is looking at her. Eyes a little wide and mouth opening just a little like he’s trying to find words to say. 

“I also came here with an apology,” she licks her lips and looks at Julie, because it’s Julie she really needs to say this too. “I’ve made a– a lot of bad choices in the last few years. And I think… I think a lot of them involved hurting you Jules and I’m. I’m sorry. For being a bitch. For not saying anything. For everything.” 

She’s not sure what reaction she is hoping for. Or what reaction she even wants. Forgiveness would be the best, but she’s pretty sure that has to be earned. Or something like that. Julie just keeps looking at her, and Luke seems to realise that she’s not going to say anything, that she needs a moment, so he’s stepping forward, notebook still held in one hand. 

“How’d you know this was mine?” He asks and there's such a serious look on his face that Carrie can’t help but laugh. 

"Your names on the front page. In like, huge letters, and circled. And underlined.” 

“R _iii_ ght,” he draws the word out, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he laughs and suddenly Alex and Reggie are laughing too, pushing his shoulder and Luke is saying something about it being ' _a long time ago, shut_ _up_ '. And then Julie is standing next to her, knocking her shoulder lightly with her own. 

“Thank you, for bringing him his songs back. And for the apology,” Julie gives her a small smile and nods her head towards where the boys have gathered around the piano, notebook open in front of them as they look at old songs. It’s an invitation, an offer, small and inconsequential. She can say no. Could walk away. 

But Carrie is tired of making the _wrong_ choices in her life. Wants to make a few right ones instead. Rebuilding her friendship with Julie, with Flynn too eventually, returning lost work to ghost band mates. It’s a good start, she thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> hi again all!! turns out, carrie apparently speaks to me on a level i didn't expect and i got this done waaay quicker then anticipated. BUT on the plus side, this one isn't _that_ sad, in comparison?? i mean, i don't think it is. it feels much more like an exploration of carrie has a person then just 5 times she cried. 
> 
> but anyhoo! carrie doesn't need a redemption arc because she hasn't actually done anything that needs redeeming? she's just made some catty comments. carrie is a good person she just makes some shitty choices and is a typical teenage girl. name one teenage girl who wasn't a bit of a bitch at some point? bet you can't. 
> 
> anyway!!!  
> i hope you're all staying safe in these hard times.  
> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are appreciated!! mwah xox  
> you can also find me on [tumblr](https://tangledstarlight.tumblr.com/)!


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